Preview — Homicide
by David Simon

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

From the creator of HBO's The Wire, the classic book about homicide investigation that became the basis for the hit television show.

The scene is Baltimore. Twice every three days another citizen is shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned to death. At the center of this hurricane of crime is the city's homicide unit, a small brotherhood of hard men who fight for whatever justice is poFrom the creator of HBO's The Wire, the classic book about homicide investigation that became the basis for the hit television show.

The scene is Baltimore. Twice every three days another citizen is shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned to death. At the center of this hurricane of crime is the city's homicide unit, a small brotherhood of hard men who fight for whatever justice is possible in a deadly world.

David Simon was the first reporter ever to gain unlimited access to a homicide unit, and this electrifying book tells the true story of a year on the violent streets of an American city. The narrative follows Donald Worden, a veteran investigator; Harry Edgerton, a black detective in a mostly white unit; and Tom Pellegrini, an earnest rookie who takes on the year's most difficult case, the brutal rape and murder of an eleven-year-old girl.

Originally published fifteen years ago, Homicide became the basis for the acclaimed television show of the same name. This new edition--which includes a new introduction, an afterword, and photographs--revives this classic, riveting tale about the men who work on the dark side of the American experience....more

Community Reviews

“The Wire” is over. “The Wire,” which salvaged so many depressing Sunday nights. “The Wire,” which was the only reason we subscribed to HBO. “The Wire,” one of the few television dramas where I’ve repeatedly found myself thinking of all the characters and their situations as real.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels the same way. Fictional or not, Omar got obituaries in publications across the country when his character died a few weeks*this contains Wire spoilers, but not Homicide spoilers.*

“The Wire” is over. “The Wire,” which salvaged so many depressing Sunday nights. “The Wire,” which was the only reason we subscribed to HBO. “The Wire,” one of the few television dramas where I’ve repeatedly found myself thinking of all the characters and their situations as real.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels the same way. Fictional or not, Omar got obituaries in publications across the country when his character died a few weeks ago. Whole NFL teams gather together to watch. And even Barack Obama has mentioned his love for the show on the road several times. What do we do now that it’s over?

I have at least a temporary solution. A few weeks ago, Ben bought Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon, one of the two creators of the show and a former Baltimore Sun journalist. The non-fiction book follows 30 or so Baltimore detectives through a year of cases - starting on New Year’s day in 1988 and ending on New Year’s Eve 1988. When Ben started reading it, it did nothing less than take over his life, and when I started reading it the day he finished it, it took over mine. In the good way.

Reading Homicide is like reading the true story behind the myth of “The Wire.” You meet the real characters who where mixed up and re-pieced together to create Bunk, McNulty, Lester, and Keema. More than that, it offers a back-stage pass into the details of detective work that are only glimpsed during the show - whole chapters are devoted to what it’s like to work in the city morgue and what it’s like for a detective to testify in court. Vocabulary words from “The Wire” that you always wondered about like a “yo” and a “redball” are finally clearly defined.

In short, Homicide makes me better understand why we loved “The Wire” so much: it is truthful and (as much as a television drama can be) it is real. No wonder that the world has taken Omar’s death as if it he once actually lived. No wonder it was heartbreaking to know that Bubbles makes it but Dookie doesn’t.

There weren’t any fireworks at the end of Homicide - some of the biggest murder cases of the year are never solved and none of the hardworking detectives are recognized or even given enough overtime. There also weren’t any big fireworks at the end of “The Wire” - and Homicide helped me understand that that’s how it should be.

So if your schedule is still empty on Sunday nights, or if you start missing the late-night antics of detectives waiting for the phone to ring, don’t worry: there’s still Homicide, and it’s a solid 650 pages long....more

I've been rereading David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets on and off for a while (the greatest enemy to my reading: video games. Desensitizing me to violence like the grind of dead bodies on the sidewalk chalks every day). I first read it way back when before high school when my mom got me a copy and told me that I had to read it (for someone who doesn't know me at all she got that one right-on). The tv show was my great obsession. I had fansites on actors Andre Braugher (Frank PI've been rereading David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets on and off for a while (the greatest enemy to my reading: video games. Desensitizing me to violence like the grind of dead bodies on the sidewalk chalks every day). I first read it way back when before high school when my mom got me a copy and told me that I had to read it (for someone who doesn't know me at all she got that one right-on). The tv show was my great obsession. I had fansites on actors Andre Braugher (Frank Pembelton) and Clark Johnson (Meldrick), watched it on tape constantly, had debates about who killed Adena Watson (the fact that we never found out is one of the many reasons why 'Homicide' is the greatest). I still remember sitting in Algebra class and going over the episodes in my mind (like hell I was thinking about Algebra). Yeah, obsession. (The Wire would later become my favorite for the same reasons and sucking me into being unable to think of anything else. I wish everything was that good.) 'Homicide' was a great show (until the last seasons but that fault is NBCs). I've read that Homicide is "baby The Wire". I don't think that's an accurate description. You know how lots of people say that The Wire is a slow burn and they don't get hooked until like six episodes in? I never thought that. I loved it immediately (in part because it reminded me of 'Homicide'). Oh right, I was gonna say that The Wire is "the big picture" and Homicide is "hindsight". It's every day grind of life. The Wire is cogs in the machine. Both came out of this book (The Wire is also a baby of Simon's book The Corner with Ed Burns). The slice of life going through the day to day doesn't make any kind of sense or reveal any meaning until much later when experience enables you to trace what stood the test of time (and faulty memories, willfully faulty memories too). I read about the detectives in this book as a teenager and never forgot them.

I'll never be able to remember precisely which interview it was (I've read/watched many) of David Simon's where he criticized his immature (he probably used a different word being a better writer than I) life views at the time of writing 'Homicide'. He said he came to see people like Bubbles from The Wire in the visceral share/live with them after getting to know Gary from the year of living/writing The Corner. I cannot agree that 'Homicide' was limited in view of the families of the murdered victims, focusing instead on the step back perspective of the detectives. In fact, they meet again the grieving mother when doing The Corner, the lady who runs the community center. I had not forgotten her from reading 'Homicide'. Not just the difficulty of confronting that grief. It's complicated, if you've lost someone you can get how that feels but no one can ever get it completely because everyone has different not exactly the same relationships. It's a cliche in fiction to not wanna hear "I know how you feel". It's good enough for me that these guys are there solving the case. (There's the fear of losing someone, too. How can anyone pretend something only touches them? No matter how deeply personal grief is.) Simon depicted what the homicide cops had to do to do their jobs, but like they were not these no man's islands, the grief was beating in the words. Maybe Simon knows better what he felt than I could, but no way do I agree that 'Homicide' is a lesser work than The Wire or The Corner because of its perspective. Like what Jay Landsman (the character on 'The Wire', not the real detective from the book who played a different character on The Wire, and was basis of Munch on 'Homicide') said about McNulty: "If I was laying there dead on some Baltimore street corner, I'd want it to be you standing over me catchin' the case." (The real Landsman is also a character in Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policeman's Society novel. It's no wonder he's inspired writers. Just the bit he does pretending to smoke a drag cracks me the hell up.)

More Homicide confessions while I'm at it: I wore John Munch glasses in high school. (He's also on the Law and Order spin-off. Landsman is taking over the world!)

MarielI've never been able to get anyone outside of family into Homicide either. They think it is too boring.Sad sigh.

How far are you into The Wire? I don'tI've never been able to get anyone outside of family into Homicide either. They think it is too boring.Sad sigh.

How far are you into The Wire? I don't want to spoil anything...

In the first season there's a character Wallace (one of the corner kids) who can't deal with murder. It eats at him and everybody else senses his "weakness". They (mainly Stringer) send his two friends Poot and Bodie to kill him. The way that scene was handled, the not turning back moment for Poot and Bodie (and I've no doubt they'd not have done it if they weren't afraid of each other and ending up dead like Wallace)... I don't know of anything else that showed something like that in that way. My ex didn't agree. He thought it was over for Poot and Bodie forever. I felt the horror for all three kids and I was so impressed with the show for that.

Or Bubbles. The ups and downs for Bubbles for the entire show. Some of his stories ripped my heart right out. And DeAndre and the kids in season four. (Season four is my favorite season. Season two is my least favorite.)

The Wire was very funny too. Little stuff kills me. Omar's whistling refrain of "the farmer and the dell". Later the Method Man character Cheese says something about the Cheese getting the cheese. That was great. David Simon is right when he says the funniest lines go to the Landsman and Prop Joe characters, though....more
Oct 22, 2010 04:57PM

Paul BryantI'm only just at the beginning of Wire season 2!
Oct 23, 2010 07:38AM

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most of us don’t know much about the Street. Not streets, in general, but the Street, proper noun. I make that assumption based on the fact that I’m writing this and you’re reading this on Goodreads, which is just about as far from the Street as you can possibly get.

I was born in the mostly-white suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. I lived across the street from a park, where people ice-skated in winter and played little league during the summer. If a coI’m going to go out on a limb and say that most of us don’t know much about the Street. Not streets, in general, but the Street, proper noun. I make that assumption based on the fact that I’m writing this and you’re reading this on Goodreads, which is just about as far from the Street as you can possibly get.

I was born in the mostly-white suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. I lived across the street from a park, where people ice-skated in winter and played little league during the summer. If a cop came into my neighborhood, it was because our night games – capture the flag, ghosts and goblins – were disturbing the sleep of our neighbors. I went to a private school, along with all my friends. We all had stable families until our parents divorced, right on cue, as we entered college (and we all entered college). Such is the suburban life I led.

The Street is different, as night is different from day, and as a punch in the groin is different from a bite of cake. I make no claims to any knowledge of the Street. Whatever faint knowledge I pretend to have comes from the bits and pieces gleaned from my clients in the public defenders’ office.

It’s a place without young men and fathers, who are in jail, or absconded, or dead. As a result, there is no such thing as a regular peer group. Twelve year-olds hang out with nineteen year-olds, with predictable results. It’s a place where the commercial markets to which we’ve grown accustomed do not exist. There aren’t supermarkets, so if you want to go shopping, you better have a car or be willing to take the bus. If you want to shop local, the goods you purchase, from a store with iron gates over the windows, and the clerk behind bulletproof glass, you will – oddly, since this is an impoverished place – pay more than you would elsewhere. There aren’t banks, so if you’re lucky enough to get a paycheck, you have to go to EZ Check or Payday Express, where you lose up to 20% of that money. Since the normal cabs won’t come to this place, there are jitneys – unlicensed taxis – to ferry you from place to place. The jobs that exist here are service oriented and strictly local: hair stylists, child care, lawn care. Based on our whacky drug laws, the sharpest capitalists get into drugs, where you can make more in a couple hours than you could in a month.

So, that’s the Street. And no Street compared to Baltimore in the 1980s where, in some years, there was almost a murder a day. That’s where David Simon’s classic, gripping, surprisingly powerful piece of journalism, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, takes place.

Homicide belongs to that narrow genre of “year in the life of __" journalism, of which I am a devotee. I’ve read books about a year in the life of a firehouse, and a courthouse, and a public defenders office. Though I keep reading them, I’m always a little disappointed. The reason, I think, is that the main story – the events taking place during that particular year – often aren’t interesting enough to support a narrative; thus, you get a lot of filler (historical context, biographies, etc.)

Unfortunately for the dead souls in Homicide, David Simon never came across that problem. There are enough murders to support a television show for seven seasons. A new case is breaking every other day, so that the detectives that Simon follows – the focus is on a single shift comprised of three squads – are always busy.

The big case of the year is the rape and murder of a young girl, who’s eviscerated body is found dumped in an alley. In the afterword, Simon calls this case the “spine” of the book. I hate to disagree with the author, since he wrote this and all, but no single murder, not even one as horrible as the dead of a child, stands out. Indeed, they all start to blur together, which is sort of the point.

In my opinion, the true framework of the book is a list of “rules” for a homicide detective (Rule One: “Everyone lies”). These rules are a jumping-off point for various discussions on topics such as Miranda warnings, probable cause, autopsies, and justifiable force. Simon deftly blends theses discussions into the narrative, so that things that would feel like digressions or filler in other books instead seamlessly becomes part of the story. For instance, here’s Simon’s inimitable way of explaining Miranda’s Fifth Amendment protections:

The detective offers a cigarette, not your brand, and begins an uninterrupted monologue that wanders back and forth for a half hour more, eventually coming to rest in a familiar place: You have the absolute right to remain silent. Of course you do. You’re a criminal. Criminals always have the right to remain silent. At least once in your miserable life, you spent an hour in front of a television set, listening to this book-‘em-Danno routine. You think Joe Friday was lying to you? You think Kojak was making this horsesh*t u? No way, bunk, we’re talking sacred freedoms here, notably your Fifth Fu**ing Amendment protection against self-incrimination, and hey, it was good enough for Ollie North, so who are you to go incriminating yourself at the first opportunity? Get it straight: A police detective, a man who gets paid government money to put you in prison, is explaining your absolute right to shut up before you say something stupid.

Homicide begins with a murder on January 19, and ends with a murder in December. In between, there are shootings, stabbings, beatings and suicides. Some get bludgeoned, others strangled. Every once in awhile there’s even a natural death (these still has to be investigated by the homicide squad if it appears suspicious). It’s a catalogue of darkness and evil, and for the first hundred pages or so, I found the book almost unbearably suffocating. It’s like the movie Se7en, all darkness and rain and inhumanity, but without the ability to get lost in Brad Pitt’s eyes. All the detectives tend to blur together; they all talk tough, with a certain coarse indifference that is a shield against the grim realities of their calling. The victims are dehumanized and, just as important, so are the detectives. It doesn’t help that so many of the detectives have similar names: at the start, it’s tough to separate your Worden from your Waltemeyer, or tell McLarney from McAllister. And good luck differentiating Edward Brown from David Brown. They all seem as one: hard, unfeeling, tough, and eloquently blasphemous.

Over time, and 500 more pages, that starts to change. Despite the fact that you almost never learn about these men’s personal lives, and never follow them home (though you follow them to many, many bars), all nineteen of the detectives in Lieutenant Gary D’Addario’s shift become sharply-etched individuals. You get to understand their strengths, their weaknesses; their talents and their shortcomings; how they investigate crimes and how they interact with their colleagues. Homicide subtly gains power as it moves forward, so that by the time the final page comes, and you have to leave these detectives behind, you’re grateful that your edition of the book comes with Simon’s 2006 afterword, so you can find out what has happened to these men in the decades following publication.

Simon is best known for HBO’s The Wire. As such, it was no surprise that Homicide wonderfully catches the hilariously profane, idiomatic, and often surprisingly evocative dialogue heard on the Street. But Homicide is much more than premium-cable-ready one-liners. It is a work of reporting so impossibly detailed that it boggles my mind how Simon was ever able to compile this information, and then shape it into a coherent work.

At six hundred pages, Homicide qualifies as an epic of the Street. Simon takes you, as expected, to dozens of murder scenes, in a variety of alleys, tenements, and curbsides. He also provides a retrospectively-nostalgic glimpse into an 80’s-era precinct house, complete with b&w analogue television sets, typewriters, and cops who weren’t afraid to have a beer on the job. Beyond that, Simon leads you – Virgil-like – into the autopsy room, and the prosecutor’s office, and, in a great set-piece, through the trial of an alleged cop-shooter.

This is a masterpiece. Simple as that. It resonates. It gets beneath your skin. It takes you someplace you’ve probably never been, and you start to get that vicarious thrill until you realize, as hard as it is, that this is a real place, and not a nightmare conjured from a dark imagination.

A couple parting thoughts:

First, Homicide was written during the advent of DNA analysis. If you believe Simon, in the afterword, police work hasn’t changed much in the years since publication. He writes that cops still rely on their gut instincts, their intuition, and their tried-and-true interrogation techniques. I have a hard time believing that. Not the part about the DNA, necessarily, but certainly the enhanced interrogation techniques practiced by Baltimore’s finest. Some of the stunts these detectives pulled come straight out of LA Confidential. Nowadays, most police forces, as a matter of practice, record all interrogations on video (I know, at least, that this is the practice of our police department, and we’re not exactly on the leading edge of things). Any defense attorney who saw a recording of one of these interrogations would have a hard time believing he or she wasn’t in heaven. It’s not just that the things these guys were doing were unconstitutional, it’s that they were so unconstitutional as to defy belief.

Secondly, the streets of Baltimore are an alien world to most readers of Homicide. Simon makes it all the more alien by telling his story entirely from the point of view of the mostly-white detectives who enter and exit this mostly-black enclave. While we eventually learn a great deal about these detectives, we never learn anything about the victims, or the people who populate these mean streets. The effect is to humanize the cops while turning the victims and the criminals into animals.

This isn’t a criticism so much as it is an observation. Indeed, Simon switched points of view in his follow-up, The Corner. Yet it’s worth bearing this one-sidedness in mind while reading Homicide. It is so relentless, so committed to its story, that you start to lose the larger context of failed drug laws, failed schools, poverty, and the legacy of racism that has created these streets. You also forget that when you close the book, finally able to escape, that the streets do not disappear. They are still out there, whether we are thinking about them or not. ...more

An obsession of the narrator in When we were Orphans is that there is a cause to the crime that he sees. As a famous private Detective (at least in his own mind) he sees himself as sitting across a chessboard, grandmaster against grandmaster in a battle of wills. Good eventually triumphing over evil.

That attractive notion that evil acts, although a disruption in orderly and peaceful lives, are meaningful - the product of an evil will keeps us watching crime stories on TV and reading detection stAn obsession of the narrator in When we were Orphans is that there is a cause to the crime that he sees. As a famous private Detective (at least in his own mind) he sees himself as sitting across a chessboard, grandmaster against grandmaster in a battle of wills. Good eventually triumphing over evil.

That attractive notion that evil acts, although a disruption in orderly and peaceful lives, are meaningful - the product of an evil will keeps us watching crime stories on TV and reading detection stories. The order of the universe has been broken but through sheer brainpower the hero will identify and remove the wrong doer and make the world safe is a very satisfying and reassuring story. Perhaps this is why conspiracy theories are popular - they allege that there is meaning in the rush of the world's events that is explicable to the true initiate.

This book is an antidote to all that. Not all cases are solved. Not all cases that are solved make it to court. Not all cases taken to court result in a conviction. No one cares about the motive, accept perhaps the jury. And above all most of the crimes are stupid. There are no Napoleons of crime here. Instead murders committed in a moment of anger, or for a handful of money, or a couple of days worth of drugs. When it comes to solving cases it is luck and good fortune that rule. Hard work is good, but luck is better.

David Simon spent a year in the late 1980s with the Baltimore police department homicide squad and this book is the resulting reportage. Simple day to day police work, office and job situational humour (and since this is about a Homicide department you need a fairly dire sense of humour to enjoy this, the woman with two husbands in the same house each of whom thinks the other is just the lodger is perhaps the politest example), successes and failures come intermixed. It is an episodic book. We experience the cases as they occur, not in neat coherent packages. This makes it easy to pick up and put down or to reread sections as you please.

Slowly Simon introduces some general passages, on the development of the Baltimore Police Force from its origins as being simply the best armed gang on the street to its state in the 1980s, the over worked court system - reliant on plea bargaining to keep going, coping with disinterested jurors and the politics of the system.

The police and courts as a system was also one of the themes of The Wire and what Simon shows us in this book is a snapshot of a system formed and functional in some earlier time but which can't realistically cope with the number and type of murders that were occurring in Baltimore during the 1980s. This was largely a result of the number of drug related crimes whether execution style killings with minimal if any evidence at the crime scene or street corner killings. The detectives were bludgeoned with so many cases and left working as individuals rather than in teams that dealing with complex cases (view spoiler)[ one of these was a sprawling 'Black Widow' case featuring two men living in the same house who both believed they were married to the same woman but didn't know that the other was also her husband (view spoiler)[bedtimes must have been interesting (hide spoiler)] which came to light only after repeated attempts to murder her niece for the insurance to which the aunt was the only beneficiary (view spoiler)[beware of aunts bearing insurance (hide spoiler)] a case which was further complicated by the fraudulent misburial of dozens of corpses in a cemetery (hide spoiler)]let alone systemic issues risked derailing the work of the department as a whole, geared as it was to attempting to clear (view spoiler)[ie to have identified a culprit and built a case against against them, this however did not require that the case be brought to court let alone a conviction to be achieved (hide spoiler)] over half the homicides committed during the year to maintain an acceptable position in the national league tables. This naturally was a political nonsense, but careers have been built out of worse.

Coming to this after "The Wire" you'll recognise his some of his source material (more can be found in The Corner), in characters, situations, anecdotes and some major themes - the reactive nature of the homicide set up means that they are struggling to cope with an increasing number of homicides and the joy of statistics. But this is an entirely free-standing book, full of insight into a team of people struggling to cope with crimes of a scale and type that they aren't geared up to deal with.

"So why did you marry her?" Childs asked him."I had to," he explains. "She put a voodoo curse on me and I had to do what she said.""How did she do that?"Baines recalled that his aunt had cooked him a meal using her own menstrual discharge and watched as he ate. Afterward, she told him what she had done and explained that she now had power over him.Childs and Waltemeyer exchange glances.

I wonder if that would have made Miss Marple drop a stitch? ["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>...more

David Simon's now-classic work of police and crime journalism gave birth to two of the finest shows ever to appear on TV: Homicide: Life on the Streets, and The Wire. Both shows are full of episodes and lines that you will recognize if you read this book, particularly the search for the killer of a young girl named Adena Watson, based on the real-life case of Latonya Wallace.

Aside from anecdotes reappearing on great TV shows, though, this book is ju

"You gotta let him play....This is America.”

David Simon's now-classic work of police and crime journalism gave birth to two of the finest shows ever to appear on TV: Homicide: Life on the Streets, and The Wire. Both shows are full of episodes and lines that you will recognize if you read this book, particularly the search for the killer of a young girl named Adena Watson, based on the real-life case of Latonya Wallace.

Aside from anecdotes reappearing on great TV shows, though, this book is just one of the best and most clear-eyed looks at American policing you are ever likely to read. Simon was given almost unlimited access, allowed to ride along with the Baltimore Homicide Department for a full year, and write down everything he heard and saw. He portrays the detectives, the city brass, and the criminals in unsparing detail, neither making the cops out to be heroes standing tall to Protect and Serve, nor corrupt and racist bullies (though certainly there are a few cops who fall into both categories), but what they are: working men working a trade, and their trade is murder. Another day, another body falls in Baltimore, and the detectives work the cases because their captains live and die by "clearance" rates; what do the numbers look like? The chapter in which it is explained how police departments jiggle figures to make themselves look better, to boost their "solved" cases or even to use technical loopholes to decide whether or not a killing is a murder, is your first entry into the cynical world of policing, Baltimore style.

1. Everyone lies. Murderers lie because they have to; witnesses and other participants lie because they think they have to; everyone else lies for the sheer joy of it, and to uphold a general principle that under no circumstances do you provide accurate information to a cop.2. The victim is killed once, but a crime scene can be murdered a thousand times.3. The initial 10 or 12 hours after a murder are the most critical to the success of an investigation.4. An innocent man left alone in an interrogation room will remain fully awake, rubbing his eyes, staring at the cubicle walls and scratching himself in dark, forbidden places. A guilty man left alone in an interrogation room goes to sleep.5. It's good to be good; it's better to be lucky.6. When a suspect is immediately identified in an assault case, the victim is sure to live. When no suspect has been identified, the victim will surely die.7. First, they're red. Then they're green. Then they're black. (Referring to the color of an open case on the board, the money that must be spent to investigate the case, and the color of the solved murder as it is listed on the board)8. In any case where there is no apparent suspect, the crime lab will produce no valuable evidence. In those cases where a suspect has already confessed and been identified by at least two eyewitnesses, the lab will give you print hits, fiber evidence, blood typings and a ballistic match.9. To a jury, any doubt is reasonable; the better the case, the worse the jury; a good man is hard to find, but 12 of them, gathered together in one place, is a miracle.10. There is too such a thing as a perfect murder. Always has been, and anyone who tries to prove otherwise merely proves himself naive and romantic, a fool who is ignorant of Rules 1 through 9.

The cops are personalities, and we get to know them — they are all among the elite, because the Homicide department is a meritocracy and those who can't cut the mustard get honorably reassigned to Vice or Property Crimes or somewhere else less demanding. You clear cases or you move on. But they're also blue collar guys, frequently assholes, they have gallows humor, they don't believe anything coming out of anyone's mouth, but every now and then they have a "real victim," which is to say, an innocent citizen of Baltimore who was not a drug dealer or a gang-banger caught on the wrong corner, and then, sometimes, you see that they actually care. They can't allow themselves to care too much, but as when little Latonya Wallace is found raped and gutted in a row-house yard, sometimes they catch a case that isn't just another name in red that they're trying to turn black for the sake of their numbers.

I live near Baltimore, so I am kind of familiar with the area, but I admit I have stayed away from most of the neighborhoods talked about in this book. The drug markets, the projects, the seedy parks, and the mean streets lined with liquor stores, cheap dives, and check-cashing places where much of the largely African-American population lives, are foreign territory to me. They are places where white guys don't go unless they're either buyers or cops. Race is very much present in Baltimore and in David Simon's narrative, though for the most part, the detectives, while sometimes casually racist, treat every victim and every suspect alike. Race figures largely in trials, and in policing, it's an always-present factor.

The year that Simon details in this book was 1988; in the decades since then, the crime rate (and particularly the homicide rate) in Baltimore has fallen quite a lot. But the city has only gotten poorer, so the underlying problems remain. The police department that Simon describes is probably quite different now; not just the technology has changed, but I suspect even in 1988 they were in a state of transition from the old Irish-dominated police department in a city where all neighborhoods were delineated by race, ethnicity, and class to one that's a bit more mixed now.

Following these detectives along as they investigate all sorts of murders is entertaining (in a grim way), educational, and captivating. Simon has a fine journalistic writing style with a wry sense of irony, and every case becomes a little mini-episode, even the simplest and stupidest. And there are a lot of stupid cases. It's sad the dumb reasons people will kill each other, and even sadder just how stupid a lot of criminals are. If you've ever wondered how a police detective gets a suspect to say a damn thing without a lawyer present, then the chapter on how they weasel their way past the reading of rights will strike you as both brilliant and damning, and if nothing else, perhaps you will absorb one crucial lesson: if you are ever charged with a crime, then whether you're innocent or guilty, keep your damn mouth shut, because the police are not your friends.

A fantastic look at the world of policing, in far more detail and gritty verisimilitude than you're going to get from any TV show. Of course this book a little dated now, but even back then, the police were complaining about juries being tainted by ridiculous expectations given to them by crime shows.

This is probably the best true crime book ever unless you can show me that all that stuff in Dostoyevsky really happened, in which case he's probably got the edge. The story is fairly familiar I think but to summarise - David Simon was a journalist & came up with the idea of spending a year embedded (so we now call it) with the Baltimore Homicide Unit, wrote a series of articles for the Baltimore Sun, they got turned into this book, then two years after that the book became the series HomiciThis is probably the best true crime book ever unless you can show me that all that stuff in Dostoyevsky really happened, in which case he's probably got the edge. The story is fairly familiar I think but to summarise - David Simon was a journalist & came up with the idea of spending a year embedded (so we now call it) with the Baltimore Homicide Unit, wrote a series of articles for the Baltimore Sun, they got turned into this book, then two years after that the book became the series Homicide : Life on the Street (I know, crap title), then DS wrote The Corner about the drug trade in Baltimore and that became a mini-series and then he created The Wire and that one everyone knows about. I'll stop there.

So this guy has written the best true crime book and created the best and the third best tv shows of all time (Sopranos being No 2). This guy is an American national treasure. He's also really arrogant as can be read in a very self-regarding introduction to the book of the The Wire ("So then I decided to create a tv show which would forever redefine the way we watch tv").

Homicide the book is really different from Homicide the tv show. Both are complete genius and are hereby UNRESERVEDLY RECOMMENDED TO ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE WHO CAN STILL READ OR ORDER DVDS FROM AMAZON. Both in their own way make you laugh and cry and howl and bark and make hissing sounds and imitate the well known painting The Scream.

SOME QUOTES

Detective John Munch : Our day begins when yours ends.

*

Detective Steve Crosetti: Either it's murder, or this library has a very strict overdue policy.

*

Det. Tim Bayliss: Fourteen years old... When I was fourteen, jeez, I was in the ninth grade, and I don't remember much of what I was doing, but I know I was nowhere close to picking up a gun and shooting another kid. Det. Frank Pembleton: How old should our shooter be? Det. Tim Bayliss: Not fourteen. Det. Frank Pembleton: So if he's what, fifteen, sixteen years old, it makes any more sense? Det. Tim Bayliss: No. Det. Frank Pembleton: How old should he be then? What's the cut off age? Seventeen? Eighteen? Det. Tim Bayliss: I don't know, but not fourteen. Det. Frank Pembleton: When you find out, clue me in, awright? I'd like to know when any of this killing, at any age, from six to sixty, makes any sense. One time I want to hear about a murder that makes sense. Just one time. For any reason.

*

Det. John Munch: I took the liberty of having my craw removed years ago so that I could sleep at night.

*

[Bolander sees bird droppings on his car] Det. Stan Bolander: Would you look at this? Pigeons! Det. John Munch: Not from a pigeon, it's from a waterfowl. Det. Stan Bolander: A what? Det. John Munch: A waterfowl. From a mallard. Det. Stan Bolander: A duck? Det. John Munch: A well-fed duck. Det. Stan Bolander: Right, like you can tell the difference. That couldn't come from a seagull, I suppose? Det. John Munch: No, gulls have a milky white splurter. Notice the lobular pattern, these splays within splays. Det. Stan Bolander: Munch... why do you know these things?

One of my most prized possessions is my first edition hardcover of this book which is signed by many of the detectives mentioned in it. I also own the first mass market paperback and one of the later trade paperbacks (the one that had a new forward and afterward or something like that). Plus the Kindle eBook. And the audiobook (read by Reed Diamond).

If that first paragraph didn't clue you in, this is one of my favorite books ever. In the newsgroup alt.tv.homicide we just referred to it as The BoOne of my most prized possessions is my first edition hardcover of this book which is signed by many of the detectives mentioned in it. I also own the first mass market paperback and one of the later trade paperbacks (the one that had a new forward and afterward or something like that). Plus the Kindle eBook. And the audiobook (read by Reed Diamond).

If that first paragraph didn't clue you in, this is one of my favorite books ever. In the newsgroup alt.tv.homicide we just referred to it as The Book as among fans of the TV show Homicide: Life on the Street, that's what it was and is. When the show drifted further away from the realities shown in The Book, it wasn't nearly as good.

David Simon spent a year with a shift of Homicide detectives in Baltimore and wrote about it. Truth can be stranger than fiction, it can also be more entertaining than fiction when a good writer covers it.

As with the TV show, there's dark depressing stuff and then there's the hilarious stuff, usually smack up against each other. That's the stuff I love. I still love that some of the storylines on the show which some thought "too out there" are lifted straight from this work of nonfiction.

If you enjoy dark humor, enjoyed the TV show, enjoyed The Wire, or like true crime you'll probably like this. ...more

Believe the hype – this is a truly excellent book! An in-depth examination of one year in the life of the Baltimore Homicide department. Undoubtedly it’s gritty and earthy and contains many gruesome moments, but it’s also a very human book with the key detectives brought to life as the reader is made to understand the bizarre world they inhabit. It’s a place where death is serious but is (nearly always) a joke, where despite these men (and they are pretty much all men) having compassion it’s a dBelieve the hype – this is a truly excellent book! An in-depth examination of one year in the life of the Baltimore Homicide department. Undoubtedly it’s gritty and earthy and contains many gruesome moments, but it’s also a very human book with the key detectives brought to life as the reader is made to understand the bizarre world they inhabit. It’s a place where death is serious but is (nearly always) a joke, where despite these men (and they are pretty much all men) having compassion it’s a dull evening’s shift when somebody isn’t murdered. Okay, some of the prose has clearly been boiled for more than fifteen minutes, but this is an entertaining and thought provoking look at a job and a life which most people only ever get a glimpse of. It’s a large tome that enthralled me so much I raced through it in half a week.

Like most people these days I’ve come to this after watching ‘The Wire’, (which, of course, is an excellent series). As in the TV show, Simon manages to fully evoke the world of the Homicide team, with its jokes and tensions and bigger than life characters. Much like the TV show there are diversions into the areas around the department, such as the morgue and the courts, and Simon expertly conjures those worlds. (In addition Snot Boogie, and other pieces of dialogue, make their first appearances here). And just like ‘The Wire’ it has an ending which suggests that crime and murder in Baltimore is a beast unstoppable and will just keep destroying all in its path....more

Oops. Read the whole thing in a sitting. So much for detailed updates.

===========================================

Let's face it. A good many of us are here because of The Wire, often touted as one of the Best Shows On Television. This is because, (not as a cynic might say, due to a lack of competition), but for what are often categorized as Literary Characteristics - a documentary style, dynamic characters, prolonged character arcs, and a gritty realism. One most distinct positive is the settingOops. Read the whole thing in a sitting. So much for detailed updates.

===========================================

Let's face it. A good many of us are here because of The Wire, often touted as one of the Best Shows On Television. This is because, (not as a cynic might say, due to a lack of competition), but for what are often categorized as Literary Characteristics - a documentary style, dynamic characters, prolonged character arcs, and a gritty realism. One most distinct positive is the setting and the city itself - the city and institutions of the Grey Lady Baltimore as a character itself, living as the po-pos and the junkies and the pressmen.

How did this all start?

David Simon, our author, worked as an intern-chronicler with the BPD for some time. We see quotes, characters, whole scenes which are lifted by The Wire. Bits and pieces of characters - Bunk, Lester, Kima, Rawls, and names - Jay Landsman, Mouzone. The entire Snot Boogie story in Episode 1 - that's there. This was the inspiration.

Simon starts with a single year, following the homicide squad of the BPD. He does an impeccable job. We follow the squad on cases, stripping bare the illusions of lesser television and pleasant mystery novels. We see essays like an aside from a documentary - on the Art of Interrogation, on the Autopsy, on Cases, on the Squad, on Death. His language is educating, rational, and visceral. Long paragraphs of details are punctuated by 'fuck!'.

In November, we see a detective, not even desperate for leads on a case, dig up a body in a poor man's cemetery far from the center of town. The coffins are all dumped together in a common grave, few headstones remain. The caretaker has misplaced the file cards, making identification impossible. The City, which has offered these poor souls nothing but poverty, hunger and fear, now offers them total and immediate oblivion in death.

The city and the police are grim. Death is ordinary. They have the blackest of humor, like physicians and ER nurses, in order to combat it. Cases can be quick individual affairs, big publicity stunts, or singular obsessions. And not all are solved in 30-minutes and Justice Done. Not even the trials are so easily done.

There is a bit of contempt held by the uniforms for the murderers. Mainly because a lot of them are stupid and lie badly. This seldom degenerates into open racism. But there is one thing they do Hate, and that is the abuse and neglect and murder of children. Enough to make the toughest of them blanch and burst the veins in their heads and plan tortures diabolical for the accused.

Death is ordinary. The cases always come - at their peak, one a day. Now is there any hope or remission? Perhaps, perhaps not. Baltimore is out of the Top 5 for Murder Rate as of 2012, with less than two for every three days. But this is still five times the rate of New York's. Is there an end? Perhaps. But the best of us endure....more

Three cheers...I finished David Simon's HOMICIDE last night. Elated I did, too. It's a honker (600+ pages). The storyline tracks a Homicide squad in the Baltimore PD over a year (234 murders in '88). Two main things held my interest. First, I liked the parts on the individual homicide detectives. Their personalities are memorable. Second, I enjoyed the police procedural (CSI) stuff. HOMICIDE is well-written and fast-paced. As expected, lots of male banter (colorful usage of the F-word). It's usuThree cheers...I finished David Simon's HOMICIDE last night. Elated I did, too. It's a honker (600+ pages). The storyline tracks a Homicide squad in the Baltimore PD over a year (234 murders in '88). Two main things held my interest. First, I liked the parts on the individual homicide detectives. Their personalities are memorable. Second, I enjoyed the police procedural (CSI) stuff. HOMICIDE is well-written and fast-paced. As expected, lots of male banter (colorful usage of the F-word). It's usually a thankless job, but they excel at it, day in and day out. Winner of Edgar and Anthony Awards. Richard Price (author of CLOCKERS I read over a summer) contributes a front piece. ...more

TomYes, it's a great read. It also feeds into the great TV series "The Wire" - not just for locations but for some of the characters too.
Nov 21, 2008 04:54AM

EllenMy most favorite series on tv was "Homicide, Life on the Street". I bought the first 6 or 7 years from amazon. Loved it and still regret they doomed (My most favorite series on tv was "Homicide, Life on the Street". I bought the first 6 or 7 years from amazon. Loved it and still regret they doomed (set it up for failure) it towards the last 2 years. Although I noticed the book on the shelf at the library in Georgia when I worked there, I never got around to reading it. and now it appears that D.S. wrote this sequel. Glad to see your review....more
Sep 29, 2012 07:15AM

I’ll never be able to read another crime drama without benchmarking it to this one. It was real, after all. Simon was a young crime reporter with the Baltimore Sun when he was given permission to tag along with a squad of homicide detectives for a year. With this book he proved himself to be an avid observer, a great storyteller, and an appreciative audience for the science, language and grit of police work. You can see this as a nonfiction prequel to The Wire.

This was the book that launched David Simon on his career, and it's just as good as you could ask it to be - dense, detailed, sympathetic, analytical, perceptive, and deeply immersing to the point where I read all 600+ pages of the extended edition in 3 days. While I'm a huge fan of The Wire, Generation Kill, and Treme, I've never seen the acclaimed show this work spawned, although I'll probably have to eventually since this book is truly excellent. It's exactly what the subtitle promises: the tThis was the book that launched David Simon on his career, and it's just as good as you could ask it to be - dense, detailed, sympathetic, analytical, perceptive, and deeply immersing to the point where I read all 600+ pages of the extended edition in 3 days. While I'm a huge fan of The Wire, Generation Kill, and Treme, I've never seen the acclaimed show this work spawned, although I'll probably have to eventually since this book is truly excellent. It's exactly what the subtitle promises: the true story of the year Simon spent embedded in the Baltimore Police Department's Homicide Division alongside a score of detectives doing what they can to investigate and solve the unending torrent of murder cases thrown their way by the good people of Baltimore.

The detectives are the heroes of the story, although they would probably be uncomfortable with the H-word. They're shown as a jaded, foul, exhausted, cantankerous, cynical lot whose chief respite from the grueling toil of police work is the type of black humor that could be called "gallows humor", except that the parade of criminals they're trying to get prosecuted don't end up on Death Row near often enough for their tastes. Simon is able to make each detective's personality vivid and present on the page, explaining the man's role in the ensemble of his department while also shedding light on what makes an otherwise intelligent person spend their life chasing what seems like an infinite carousel of depression and misery. Simon obviously cared deeply about these guys doing jobs that were basically guaranteed to destroy their marriages and leave them feeling like the cog in a vast and impersonal machine.

But the stories of the detectives are the melody, and the cases they chase are the true rhythm. Simon makes these real-life cases, which in the hands of a lesser writer might have felt like mere scene-setting, just as compelling and heartbreaking to the reader as they must have been to their loved ones, while also showing how the detectives' practiced emotional distance from these cases is essential for their ability to function. He's also upfront and honest about the fact that many of these cases, including some of the worst, don't have neat or happy endings; that same sense of realism obviously informed his later work on The Wire. Indeed, there are many easter eggs for Wire viewers, like the famous Snot Boogie story, plus names like Sydnor and Mouzone that got reappropriated as part of his general "stealing life" philosophy.

In between the men and their cases are some of his trademark rants/analyses of various aspects of America and its relationship to its crimes. There's one section in particular that struck me, about the debilitating effects of slick TV dramas on juries - citizens called to serve have gotten so used to the telegenic formula of conscience-stricken criminals, omnipresent witnesses, dramatic confessions, and smoking guns that it's become noticeably harder to get juries to follow the subtler and more complicated chains of logic that occur in real courtrooms to real-life guilty men they should be convicting. I can't help but remember scenes from The Wire like Clay Davis' acquittal and wonder if at least some of the motivation behind his creative work is an effort to present a more realistic depiction of life to TV viewers as a sort of antidote.

I can't help but feel like The Corner, his second book, hit me slightly harder, that's surely no slight to the man. This will always remain one of the greatest depictions of police work ever written, and for the fan of The Wire who's digging into the back catalog, this particular item is well worth it....more

Ray RiddleAaron, if you still haven't seen the show, you need to. I was a fan of the show first, got into it when it was on NBC in the 90s. I knew it was basedAaron, if you still haven't seen the show, you need to. I was a fan of the show first, got into it when it was on NBC in the 90s. I knew it was based upon a book by David Simon and wanted to read the book, but it wasn't until a year or two ago that I finally got a copy and read it. It was like watching the show all over again. They didn't loosely base the show on the book. They took episodes and conversations directly from the book. An episode in one of the later seasons has an exact conversation from the book, word for word. Reading the book amazed me. There's so much stuff in the book that they could continue to base later episodes on it. You definitely need to watch the show....more
Sep 29, 2013 06:16PM

The year was 1988, the city was Baltimore, the murder count 234. This was the year David Simon, reporter, requested and received the OK to spend it with the Homicide unit, where he had unlimited access to the myriad of cases, the constant murders, and the band of homicide cops who tried to put the murderers away.

David Simon was on the scene 10 minutes after the call, when Detective Tom Pellegrini, a rookie, took on the vicious rape and murder of 11 year old Latonya Wallace. Pellegrini worked onThe year was 1988, the city was Baltimore, the murder count 234. This was the year David Simon, reporter, requested and received the OK to spend it with the Homicide unit, where he had unlimited access to the myriad of cases, the constant murders, and the band of homicide cops who tried to put the murderers away.

David Simon was on the scene 10 minutes after the call, when Detective Tom Pellegrini, a rookie, took on the vicious rape and murder of 11 year old Latonya Wallace. Pellegrini worked on the case day and night, and this one case was a main thread throughout the book. David also followed Detective Donald Worden, who was a veteran investigator, Detective Harry Edgerton, a black detective in a mostly white unit, Detective Sergeant Terry McLarney, Squad Supervisor, Detective Donald Waltemeyer, and many others throughout this incredibly detailed account of a year in the worst streets possible.

The rowhouses of East and West Baltimore were a seething bed of drugs, prostitution and murder. Twice every three days someone was shot, stabbed or bashed to death. The statistics were staggering, and the success rate of putting murderers behind bars was low.

David Simon writes an incredibly detailed account of everything, from the expressions on the faces of the deceased victims, to the bawdy jokes told amongst the squad. The exhaustion, lack of food and sleep while trying to break a case…he has done it all, and extremely well.

I had this book recommended to me, and I will pass the recommendation on…definitely worth a read....more

I re-read this because I am going to teach it this fall. In a book about how homicides are investigated, Simon looks at race, class, politics, police, residents, drugs, sexism, racism, and any another ism. There is plently in this book to chew over.

Older ReviewI finally read this. I loved the NBC series based on this book. Honestly, if you are debating reading this book, read it. Simon is fair, and his writing is compelling. You get a real sense of people he writes about as well aUpdated Review:

I re-read this because I am going to teach it this fall. In a book about how homicides are investigated, Simon looks at race, class, politics, police, residents, drugs, sexism, racism, and any another ism. There is plently in this book to chew over.

Older ReviewI finally read this. I loved the NBC series based on this book. Honestly, if you are debating reading this book, read it. Simon is fair, and his writing is compelling. You get a real sense of people he writes about as well as the department as a whole. If you watched the series, you will be amazed about how much was used from the book in developing plot lines. It is a book that I will think about using in class.

There are some books which demand a certain amount of respect that exists quite apart from however much you happen to enjoy reading them. But this is one of those rare texts which is both an important social document and is also accessible, fun reading. It’s a work of journalistic non-fiction presented in a novelistic style, and was the product of a year in which the author embedded himself in the Baltimore police department’s Homicide squad; with official blessing, he sat in on all kinds of worThere are some books which demand a certain amount of respect that exists quite apart from however much you happen to enjoy reading them. But this is one of those rare texts which is both an important social document and is also accessible, fun reading. It’s a work of journalistic non-fiction presented in a novelistic style, and was the product of a year in which the author embedded himself in the Baltimore police department’s Homicide squad; with official blessing, he sat in on all kinds of work, and the result is an astonishingly frank portrayal of the way that one of the most challenging jobs in America gets done.

I did hesitate to use the word ‘fun’ in the context of reading this book because the subject matter is so serious, but if I’m honest that’s really the only one that’ll do: this is over six hundred single-spaced pages in the paperback edition, but it never felt like heavy going. The author is an excellent writer, and dedicates himself entirely to addressing each and every preconception a reader might have about police work. It isn’t about kicking down doors and waving a gun around; the cold reality of the situation usually exists long after any action has occurred, and mostly seems to involve talking to all kinds of people who just want to lie to you.

For all the frequent changes in tone, it’s remarkable how effortless the author makes the narrative seem. It is clearly the product of an enormous amount of work, and it was enough to make me feel somewhat ashamed of my own career, my own piddling literary efforts. Though the author seems most comfortable with straightforward journalistic reportage, the prose frequently shifts into a more intimate psychological register when examining the motivations and anxieties of the men at the heart of this department. Most remarkable are the moments when the author hits Pause on the flow of the story and steps forward to really explain something to the reader. In any other context and with any other writer I’m sure I would find these parts questionable, but such is the confidence, authority and panache on show here that I couldn’t help but be carried away.

It turns out that for the most part, murder itself is not an especially complicated business. There are no complex Agatha Christie contrivances here, nor is there any messing about with the existential conventions of Noir fiction. Most of the cases here fall into two broad categories: the ‘dunkers’, where the nature of the crime, the evidence and the likely perpetrator are immediately obvious; and the ‘whodunits’, which are the relatively few cases where there is a genuine mystery as to what took place. The gap between these two experiences is quite considerable. The most disturbing suggestion to take away from this book is the idea that: ‘there is too such a thing as a perfect murder’; that no matter how heinous the crime, there’s a good chance that the person who did it will get away with it. And not because the detective did anything particularly wrong, or the perp did anything particularly right: but because actually catching somebody, and proving that they did it beyond reasonable doubt in court, is such a huge and complicated and difficult task that so much of it depends on luck as much as hard legwork on the part of the police. But that's not to say that the hard work doesn't matter.

The book also lifts the lid on the aspects of police work that many readers are less likely to be familiar with. In this regard, the detectives could make for a fascinating case study in management science and politics. Internal tensions are stoked by the presence of a whiteboard in the office listing all the open cases and to whom they are assigned; to please the bosses, the aim simply becomes to change those names from red to black, signifying that they’ve been closed. This can actually mean all kinds of things in terms of justice — but for the bosses, the important thing is that the murder clearance rate stays at or above the national average. And then there's the 'Red Ball' cases; those which come along once every so often and demand a greater level of attention simply because society demands that police throw every resource they can muster into closing the case.

One thing worth stressing is that this book is absolutely on the side of the police. Or perhaps it would be more apt to say that it exists entirely within the police, and looks at the world as they see it. Their prejudices and problems are documented without much in the way of dispute from the author; he is an invisible presence throughout, his own traces concealed from the events which transpire. While it does contain the seed of the author’s later work as the creator of ‘The Wire’ — and there are at least one or two anecdotes which are directly reproduced in that show — it never crosses the thin blue line which separates the police from their suspects, nor does the book spend much time with the victims and the rest of society.

It isn’t that the author has no sympathy or interest in those perspectives: they’re just outside the scope of the book. For all that the author declares his intent to ‘demystify’ the role of the American detective, it’s fairly clear that he retains a deep admiration for the work of the oldest and most experienced figures here — and a special contempt for those who would get in their way — and this admiration frequently manifests itself as something approaching nostalgia for a hypothetical better age of policing. I don’t think the author is calling for a police state. But while there’s awareness of how brutal things were back before the police received such scrutiny, there’s also a longing here for a kind of definitive authority-figure in society; not a fascist thing by any means, but some kind of old-fashioned sheriff figure who would have the strength to defy politics and pursue justice on a higher plane. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this book is that the author shows enough awareness of his own soapboxing tendencies to keep them on a short leash....more

Simon gives us an in-depth look at big city homicide detectives and the way they work. We follow an undermanned and under resourced Baltimore homicide squad facing a constant stream of murders. There are the “dunkers” where the case is readily resolved and the detective quickly clears it. Then there are the “whodunits” where the real detective work comes in. If it catches the public eye, it becomes a “red ball” and every angle is worked as pressure mounts from the higher ups. If there is a “trueSimon gives us an in-depth look at big city homicide detectives and the way they work. We follow an undermanned and under resourced Baltimore homicide squad facing a constant stream of murders. There are the “dunkers” where the case is readily resolved and the detective quickly clears it. Then there are the “whodunits” where the real detective work comes in. If it catches the public eye, it becomes a “red ball” and every angle is worked as pressure mounts from the higher ups. If there is a “true victim”, an innocent, the detectives take it personally, work hard and stick with it. If they see the victim as a “yo”, druggy or criminal the detectives still work it to clear it if only to improve their record but if it becomes difficult they let it go in favor of other cases.

Every gritty detail is revealed. Securing the crime scene and scanning it with a trained eye for that one piece of evidence that breaks the case; canvassing a neighborhood to find witnesses; convincing a witness to come forward; explaining to a family that their loved one or child is dead; watching the corpse undergo an autopsy at the medical examiner’s office; rereading files again and again to find that missing link; tricking and intimidating a suspect into a confession; persuading a prosecutor that you really have a case; carefully parsing testimony in court to keep from being trapped by the defense attorney. Every angle is covered.

Simon is exceptional in his portrayal of the individual detectives and their interaction. He neither makes them out to be heroes or villains. They are remarkably dedicated despite the politics, bureaucracy, limited resources, low pay and antagonistic community. At the same time they are crude, aberrant personalities prone to heavy bouts of drinking. Amidst the constant mayhem and disruption to their personal lives they maintain camaraderie through a dark cynical sense of humor. It’s easy to see how they become jaded dealing every day with carved up bullet ridden bodies and the most sordid people imaginable. I became jaded just reading about murder after murder, the callousness of the murderers and indifference of the community.

Simon’s inside account is authentic, disturbing and powerful. It reveals a raw ugly slice of America in a way that is thought provoking and still relevant 25 years later. If you imagined that there was anything glamorous about being a detective, this book will surely change your mind....more

Man, this was so good. My new true-crime benchmark, it was really difficult to put down - I lost a lot of sleep staying up late reading this one. In the late 1980’s journalist David Simon was permitted to shadow detectives in the Baltimore Homicide Department for one year, following the detectives and reporting on their cases, investigations, leads, interrogations, and courtroom testimony. He wrote a book, titled “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets” narrating his experience and throwing inMan, this was so good. My new true-crime benchmark, it was really difficult to put down - I lost a lot of sleep staying up late reading this one. In the late 1980’s journalist David Simon was permitted to shadow detectives in the Baltimore Homicide Department for one year, following the detectives and reporting on their cases, investigations, leads, interrogations, and courtroom testimony. He wrote a book, titled “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets” narrating his experience and throwing in a dash of investigative and criminal justice theory. The book inspired The Wire, which is probably the best TV show ever made, and you can easily see where some of the inspiration for the characters and the cases in the show come from. The show was fictional, but there are obvious elements of the real-life detectives and cases in it. The book was fantastic, the writing superb, and the experiences shared often unbelievable. Here is what i learned about police work from the book:

There are ten rules of homicide investigation:

Rule One: Everyone Lies. Murderers lie because they have to; witnesses and other participants lie because they think they have to; everyone else lies for the sheer joy of it, and to uphold a general principle that under no circumstances do you provide accurate information to a cop.

Rule Two: The victim is killed once, but a crime scene can be murdered a thousand times. After the lab technicians have finished collecting evidence and the detectives have satisfactorily combed the scene, the lead detective has to make an agonizing decision to finish and open up the crime scene. Detectives on cases that have gone cold continually agonize over the fact that they may have missed something, that if they had kept the crime scene just a little longer, would someone have found something?

Rule Three: The initial 10 or 12 hours after a murder are the most critical to the success of an investigation.

Rule Four: An innocent man left alone in an interrogation room will remain fully awake, rubbing his eyes, staring at the cubicle walls and scratching himself in dark, forbidden places. A guilty man left alone in an interrogation room goes to sleep.

Rule Five: It's good to be good; it's better to be lucky. Time after time, a misled investigative report goes out the window after a mysterious phone call, or serendipitous witness comes forward and lays out what really happened.

Rule Six: When a suspect is immediately identified in an assault case, the victim is sure to live. When no suspect has been identified, the victim will surely die.

Rule Seven: First, they're red. Then they're green. Then they're black. (Referring to the color of an open case on the board, the money that must be spent to investigate the case, and the color of the solved murder as it is listed on the board)

Rule Eight: In any case where there is no apparent suspect, the crime lab will produce no valuable evidence. In those cases where a suspect has already confessed and been identified by at least two eyewitnesses, the lab will give you print hits, fiber evidence, blood typings and a ballistic match.

Rule Nine: To a jury, any doubt is reasonable; the better the case, the worse the jury; a good man is hard to find, but 12 of them, gathered together in one place, is a miracle.

Rule Ten: There is too such a thing as a perfect murder. Always has been, and anyone who tries to prove otherwise merely proves himself naive and romantic, a fool who is ignorant of Rules 1 through 9.

Great section on police interrogations - the police will do everything (and I do mean everything) within the law to get confessions out of suspects. Often it is a highwire act of using very carefully worded sentences, bluffs, acting, and outright deception. When the Miranda Rights (the right to remain silent etc) were introduced in 1966, police officials howled in unison that they would be interrogating with both hands tied behind their backs. But the prediction soon proved false, as it underestimated the ingenuity of police detectives. “By any standards to human discourse, a criminal confession can never be truly called voluntary. With rare exception, a confession is compelled, provoked and manipulated from a suspect by a detectives who has been trained in a genuinely deceitful art. That is the essence of interrogation, and those who believe that a straightforward conversation between a cop and a criminal - devoid of any treachery - is going to solve a crime and somewhere beyond naive."

As a suspect is shuffled into an interrogation room, a detective reads him his rights, hands him a copy and has him sign it. This is the “warning shot across a suspect’s bow, granting rights to a man who will then be tricked into relinquishing them.” The detective goes on and “does his job in the only possible way. He follows the requirements of the law to the letter - or close enough so as not to jeopardize his case. Just as carefully, he ignores that law’s spirit and intent. He becomes a salesman, a huckster as thieving and silver-tongued as any man who ever moved used cars or aluminum siding - more so in fact, when you consider that he’s selling long prison terms to customers who have no genuine need for the product. The fraud that claims it is somehow in a suspect’s interest to talk with the police will forever be the catalyst in any criminal interrogation”. Simon goes on to vividly and hilariously describe the delicate ballet that detectives will dance around suspects, from slipping background questions that may prove useful in the investigation onto the Miranda Rights form, to carefully convincing the suspect that demanding a lawyer will somehow incriminate them right into the detective’s hands, or that a lawyer is on his way, so why don’t you finish telling us where you were on the night of the murder.

The tactics police detectives use are in some cases ingenious. If a suspect shot and killed his friend at a poker match, the detective will tell the suspect that his buddy is stable and recovering at the hospital, and probably won’t press charges, so all we are looking at is assault with intent. If two suspects are brought in together, detectives will walk suspect 1, holding a soda and a bag of chips, past the door of suspect 2, and tell him that his buddy is going home tonight because he fingered you as the shooter.

As another example, a petty criminal was convinced that the copying machine was a lie detector, after the detectives told him to place his hand on the top of the machine. The detectives printed off sheets of paper with either "True" or "False" printed on them (this scene was reenacted in The Wire), leading to this poor fellow's acceptance that the jig was up, and his confession to the crime.

The book is real like The Wire is real. The good guys don't always win. The good guys arguably aren't always even the good guys.

One piece of practical advice: in the inside cover, or somewhere handy, scribble some general descriptions of the various detectives, otherwise it may be hard at times to separate them. They are such distinct and rich characters, that you'll be missing out if you just lump them all together in your mind. ...more

I've wanted to read this book for a while, so was delighted to receive it as a gift from a friend who resides in the state of Maryland, which while geographically relatively close to the setting of the account, is a very different world to the Baltimore reported by Simon.

Taking in the year 1988, the then novice Simon was seconded from the Baltimore Sun to shadow the homicide detectives from Gary D'Addario's shift as they went about their daily work. Simon quickly blended in to the background, anI've wanted to read this book for a while, so was delighted to receive it as a gift from a friend who resides in the state of Maryland, which while geographically relatively close to the setting of the account, is a very different world to the Baltimore reported by Simon.

Taking in the year 1988, the then novice Simon was seconded from the Baltimore Sun to shadow the homicide detectives from Gary D'Addario's shift as they went about their daily work. Simon quickly blended in to the background, and what was produced was a fascinating story, which was eventually picked up by the tv networks, and afforded Simon the opportunity to have the career for which he is now known.

The 'Killing Streets' is an apt sub title, given the number of murders that occurred in the city that year-234-a number that continued to rise until it was above 300 the early nineties. The detectives in the shift deal with 'Dunkers' or murders that are easily solved, 'Whodunits' or drug related slayings they have little or no chance of solving and a number of other heinous crimes or 'Red Balls', including the murder of a 12 year old girl, the story of which provides the backbone for the book. All the time, they are keeping an eye on the chart, which colour codes their successes in comparison to the other shift, combatting overtime cutbacks, dealing with the usual office politics, battling with the justice system and putting themselves into dangerous situations on a daily basis as they go about their work.

Simon does an amazing job in his portrayal of both the people and the setting. The West Side, where most of the crimes are perpetrated and where life is cheap, is the main setting, and Simon conveys both the danger for law enforcement as well as the helpless situation in which the residents find themselves living. The detectives have poor runs and successful runs, but come up with a clearance rate of over 70%, higher than the national average, despite the difficulty of securing conviction in court in the face of expectations raised by what jury members see on tv shows. Not all investigations are successful, though individual detectives run themselves into the ground in their attempts to solve them. But what we get is a warts and all look at a Police Homicide Department in an inner city at a time when the drugs epidemic was laying waste to its most deprived areas.

A lengthy read, but well worth investing time in. I look forward to reading the 'other side' of the story in Simon's next book, 'The Corner'.

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets written by David Simon is a non-fiction account about the time he spent with Baltimore police department homicide squad.

For a detective or street police, the only real satisfaction is the work itself; when a cop spends more and more time getting aggravated with the details, he’s finished. The attitude of co-workers, the indifference of superiors, the poor quality of the equipment—all of it pales if you still love the job; all of it matters if you don’t.

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets written by David Simon is a non-fiction account about the time he spent with Baltimore police department homicide squad.

For a detective or street police, the only real satisfaction is the work itself; when a cop spends more and more time getting aggravated with the details, he’s finished. The attitude of co-workers, the indifference of superiors, the poor quality of the equipment—all of it pales if you still love the job; all of it matters if you don’t.

David Simon joined the Baltimore Police Department’s homicide unit as a “police intern” in 1988. During that year 234 cases of homicide took place in the city of Baltimore. This book provides a frank, detailed insight into the city's murders and the homicide detectives who solve them. The character of each detective is portrayed brilliantly as they all have their personalities and flaws and approaches to how an investigation should be run. This book also notes how TV has skewed jurors’ perception of what evidence is required for a guilty verdict. These real-life cases are compelling and heartbreaking and also show how the detectives' practiced emotional distance from these cases is essential for their ability to function.

I was a huge fan of the show. Huge. From day one i knew that it was finally the 'something different' that a crime story was supposed to have. Gone was the era of the hard - charging, head scratching, whodunnit replaced instead by the brilliant work-a-day grinders in the homicide squad to whom death and mayhem aren't aberrations. They are the norm.

Writers like drama. Perhaps a little too much. Okay. Let me rephrase that. WAY too much. We feel the need to tell a story about every damned little tI was a huge fan of the show. Huge. From day one i knew that it was finally the 'something different' that a crime story was supposed to have. Gone was the era of the hard - charging, head scratching, whodunnit replaced instead by the brilliant work-a-day grinders in the homicide squad to whom death and mayhem aren't aberrations. They are the norm.

Writers like drama. Perhaps a little too much. Okay. Let me rephrase that. WAY too much. We feel the need to tell a story about every damned little thing with a beginning a middle and an end. But Simon quickly dispensed with the conventional story of the whodunnit and dug much deeper, into the psychology and habits of those who have made a living out of death. If you think of a Hemingway or Fitzgerald short story or novel you know that the plot, such as it is, is frequently insignificant. It's what's going on that you DON'T see that makes the story sing, and resonate. It's the struggle to understand, and not the understanding itself, that makes it work. Simons book does this.

I knew it was different when i was actually laughing on the first page as two detectives stand over the body of a man with a hole in his head and the lead cracks a joke about how it could be fixed with a tire repair kit. Laughter. But then you say to yourself "why am i laughing? This is supposed to be serious. This guy has been MURDERED." Which got me thinking about how i generally hate the mundanity of my job. How everybody thinks it's a slog at times. And then you meet these detectives. It's a job. It may also be a calling and a passion, but it's a job too. And it's almost guaranteed that they would have a different honest reaction to sudden, violent death, suspects, etc than what we see on our favorite detective shows.

Simon went on to have a helluva career and i don't think it's beyond the pale to suggest that his style and means of storytelling may end up being one of the most influential of our generation. By simply pulling us back from the traditional ghastly whodunit or expose on the sin, the crime, the criminals and allowing us to look dispassionately at the fact of crime we are able to see much more clearly into the immediate, dangerous, but almost banal heart of things. Other crime writers might bring us a old chestnut war between absolute good and absolute evil but Simon brings us to the notion of the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time and the idea that not all crimes are committed by nefarious masterminds, but usually just by dumb slobs reacting poorly to dumb situations. And sometimes the intrepid detectives who solve these horrendous acts are just people, doing a job like the rest of us do - with humor, panache, grit, style and creativity. ...more

Simon's writing is very engaging and he has the non-fiction narrative down to a science. The book has more of a novel feel then a biography of the people involved yet never feels like fiction. More importantly this is one of the few books of this style where you don’t feel the author has turned himself into a character. Other books of the same genre, such as Homicide Special, try for the same thing but don’t get close. In those books the reader can still feel the writer in their presence. On topSimon's writing is very engaging and he has the non-fiction narrative down to a science. The book has more of a novel feel then a biography of the people involved yet never feels like fiction. More importantly this is one of the few books of this style where you don’t feel the author has turned himself into a character. Other books of the same genre, such as Homicide Special, try for the same thing but don’t get close. In those books the reader can still feel the writer in their presence. On top of that the detectives he picks are interesting. Each fits a different cop/detective stereotype yet Simon is good at showing you their full personality so they never feel like a stereotype.

More importantly the cases the officers work on are all pretty engaging. They have been picked because they are either interesting or representative of a type of case the homicide department regularly faces. What you don’t get are cases that are slam dunks and some of them are not even solvable. Many authors would feel a need to make their book wrap up completely with all of the cases coming to some kind of conclusion. I applaud Simon for not giving in to that temptation.

If you are interested in detective work, true crime, or just getting the feeling of what it is to be a cop in a big city this is an excellent read. I highly recommend this book....more

As is now well known, David Simon is the creator of The Wire, and Homicide provides much of the raw material for the show's immediacy and realism. But it is, as a work, different. The Wire is angry, angry about institutions that Simon feels have failed the individuals they are supposed to serve. Homicide is also angry about institutional failure and malaise, but it is less about those failures, and more about the kind of person that becomes a homicide detective in Baltimore, and what it really mAs is now well known, David Simon is the creator of The Wire, and Homicide provides much of the raw material for the show's immediacy and realism. But it is, as a work, different. The Wire is angry, angry about institutions that Simon feels have failed the individuals they are supposed to serve. Homicide is also angry about institutional failure and malaise, but it is less about those failures, and more about the kind of person that becomes a homicide detective in Baltimore, and what it really means to be a murder police. It is entirely successful. But in its success it is by turns depressing, horrifying, and ludicrously profane. It is also very funny and endlessly captivating. After reading Homicide you may wonder how it is that society works at all or why anyone would ever willingly live in Baltimore, or any urban area, or what to think about police officers. Provoking these kind of questions, questions about the structures that most people take for granted, is what Homicide does best. The answers, if there are any, have to be found elsewhere. ...more

Reporter David Simon spends a year inside the Homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department, observing the "murder police" working in a city which routinely has one the highest murder rates in North America. 234 murders occurred in Baltimore the year Simon wrote the book.

The murder scenes are described in every gory, grisly detail imaginable. Several cases we follow through the course of th ebook, most notably the murder of a grade school girl found in an empty lot near her home.

Simon does aReporter David Simon spends a year inside the Homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department, observing the "murder police" working in a city which routinely has one the highest murder rates in North America. 234 murders occurred in Baltimore the year Simon wrote the book.

The murder scenes are described in every gory, grisly detail imaginable. Several cases we follow through the course of th ebook, most notably the murder of a grade school girl found in an empty lot near her home.

Simon does a great job of fleshing out the different personalities and quirks of each Detective, so that none become muddled together. Not every police can become a Homicide Detective and you learn that it takes a certain type of person to do the job.

One of the most interesting aspects revealed about some Homicide Detectives is that they are not motivated by bringing killers to justice, but by intellectual pride. The Detectives feel they must solve the case and not be "outsmarted" by the murderer by never finding the perpetrator.

Homicide is one of the greatest pieces of non-fiction I have read. Insanely good, highly recommended....more

Forget The Wire. David Simon already knocked it out the park his first time up to bat. This police procedural is nothing short of a classic: sui generis. He tracks the homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department for a year. And what follows is a rare, epic look into the inner workings of an investigative unit gorgeously drawn with pitch-perfect dialogue, perfectly telling detail and deep and empathetic nuance. Whether you like police stories or not, Simon's seemingly effortless ability to eForget The Wire. David Simon already knocked it out the park his first time up to bat. This police procedural is nothing short of a classic: sui generis. He tracks the homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department for a year. And what follows is a rare, epic look into the inner workings of an investigative unit gorgeously drawn with pitch-perfect dialogue, perfectly telling detail and deep and empathetic nuance. Whether you like police stories or not, Simon's seemingly effortless ability to evoke such a rich sense of a character and narrative and place will leave you in awe. This word shaman truly "walks a higher path - and has the keys to all the doors."...more

As I gather my thoughts in order to be able to write more about this book than just ASKFKDSG; READ IT!!!, less the boring transition or general praise sentences that are going to make people stop reading my review rather than seeing why they need to read this book, I will leave you with a few thoughts:

1.) This book is great. Read it.2.) Of course real-life CSI is not like CSI. But that's because no matter how gifted an actor, no one can capture the essence of a Terry McLarney or a Harry EdgertoAs I gather my thoughts in order to be able to write more about this book than just ASKFKDSG; READ IT!!!, less the boring transition or general praise sentences that are going to make people stop reading my review rather than seeing why they need to read this book, I will leave you with a few thoughts:

1.) This book is great. Read it.2.) Of course real-life CSI is not like CSI. But that's because no matter how gifted an actor, no one can capture the essence of a Terry McLarney or a Harry Edgerton or a Donald Worden in method quite as good as David Simon in straight reportage.3.) "You're a piece of shit." -- Donald Worden....more

holy crap, people who work in the homicide division are gnarly! i could never do this job but i'm glad there are people who can and that a writer as amazing as david simon shadowed them for a year to produce this book (and eventually the gripping HBO series "the wire"). if you can handle some gruesome descriptions of murder victims, you'd likely dig this book. there were a few times i felt a little queasy after reading but nonetheless you learn a ton from this book and it reads in a way that youholy crap, people who work in the homicide division are gnarly! i could never do this job but i'm glad there are people who can and that a writer as amazing as david simon shadowed them for a year to produce this book (and eventually the gripping HBO series "the wire"). if you can handle some gruesome descriptions of murder victims, you'd likely dig this book. there were a few times i felt a little queasy after reading but nonetheless you learn a ton from this book and it reads in a way that you forget it's nonfiction. ...more

Man oh man this book wore me out. Simon drops you in, you hit the ground running (okay, a fast jog) and then that pace doesn't let up the entire time. The scenery changes over and over and eventually you realize that this is a lot longer race than you signed up for.

It was a fascinating insight into the world of Baltimore homicide, both the act and the department. I felt a genuine affection for many of the detectives while simultaneously experiencing light horror at being shown that yeah, some asMan oh man this book wore me out. Simon drops you in, you hit the ground running (okay, a fast jog) and then that pace doesn't let up the entire time. The scenery changes over and over and eventually you realize that this is a lot longer race than you signed up for.

It was a fascinating insight into the world of Baltimore homicide, both the act and the department. I felt a genuine affection for many of the detectives while simultaneously experiencing light horror at being shown that yeah, some aspects of the police department and the justice system are just as bad as you think, and even these guys who want to see it done right can't do anything, and you're lucky we're showing you the guys who want to do it right, because you don't want to see the other end.

A lot of my perspective on this book was colored by the fact that I was reading it while protests were happening in Ferguson, MO over the shooting of Mike Brown by a Ferguson PD officer. The parallel in the book of a detective unable to prove that someone in the PD had shot and killed a suspect, and his frustration at the force and all the circumstances around the crime - it was just too much. I would put the book down and be subjected to images of tear gas being shot at civilians, and to escape that I'd pick up this book full of murder and red tape. In hindsight I should have just put it aside for a while, but what did I know?

Oh, and regarding the only real thing that can be spoiled in this book:

(view spoiler)[I knew from the beginning that the murder of Latonya Kim Wallace would go unsolved, or at least as soon as I saw the name Fish Man and no real name was attached. Simon's willingness to put real names in every possible situation (and his decision to not do so here) led me to believe that someone said, "Look, this guy was never convicted so if you put his real name here he'll have a good case for slander / libel." Sure enough he was the primary suspect and yet never convicted. Having this foreknowledge made every paragraph about Wallace's death all the more heartbreaking. (hide spoiler)]

Would I recommend it to you? Sure, probably at the very least because the detectives written about in this book were given it to review and offered the chance to make edits, and they didn't. In effect they said, "Well, it may be ugly but that's us. We didn't think you'd be able to show us as we really are." That's some pretty high praise, and I think they were right.["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>...more

Good book. It's held up well over the years. A solid non-fiction account about police investigations. Some of the technology has changed as has some of the procedures, but not that much. Mr. Simon keeps the dramatic embellishments to a minimum and makes an honest attempt to show what real world police work is all about.

BondamaCheckman, perhaps because of your profession, it might be that you only gave "Homicide" three stars, but for my money, he's one of the best out there.Checkman, perhaps because of your profession, it might be that you only gave "Homicide" three stars, but for my money, he's one of the best out there. As the man behind two of the very best police procedurals, ("The Wire", and "The Corner,") there are not many other writers who can show the life of a policeman better. In my estimation, he belongs up there with George Pelecanos and Dennis Lehane. Baltimore is HIS city, with all its various bruises and rust....more
updated
Aug 18, 2011 07:00AM

CheckmanBondama wrote: "Checkman, perhaps because of your profession, it might be that you only gave "Homicide" three stars, but for my money, he's one of theBondama wrote: "Checkman, perhaps because of your profession, it might be that you only gave "Homicide" three stars, but for my money, he's one of the best out there. As the man behind two of the very best police..."

I wrote the review late at night. I meant to give it four stars. Whoops....more
Aug 18, 2011 01:22PM

Author David Simon, as police-beat reporter for the Baltimore Sun, received unprecedented permission to spend a year (1988) following a homicide unit in the urban wasteland of inner-city Baltimore. What emerges is an unbelievably bleak portrait of crime and (sometimes) punishment.

Even though this was written a quarter of a century ago, other than technology available to the police I can't imagine that the job has changed that much over time. Crimes are followed from beginning to end, detailing tAuthor David Simon, as police-beat reporter for the Baltimore Sun, received unprecedented permission to spend a year (1988) following a homicide unit in the urban wasteland of inner-city Baltimore. What emerges is an unbelievably bleak portrait of crime and (sometimes) punishment.

Even though this was written a quarter of a century ago, other than technology available to the police I can't imagine that the job has changed that much over time. Crimes are followed from beginning to end, detailing the initial call, the crime-scene investigation, the struggle to identify witnesses, the city morgue, the interviews, evaluation of evidence, and the legal wrangling. There are also other fascinating segments, such as a trip to a 'potter's field' cemetery for an attempted exhumation and a full-scale riot at the state penitentiary that involves the unit.

The detectives face a monumental task on a daily basis. The author manages to humanize them as he describes their cynicism, self-defensive mentality and cruel humor. The vast majority of the victims and witnesses are regarded with disdain by the unit (yos, yoettes, billy-boys). I felt as though I almost saw things through their eyes as the book progressed, feeling less than I should for the drug-related killings but also heartbreak and outrage over the younger, more helpless and innocent victims.

The book is the basis for the television series 'The Wire' which I now plan to watch. This is truly excellent crime reporting in all regards, and even though it is very grim, read it if you are interested in police work at the highest levels....more

The loss of Baltimore Sun was the gain of all of us. David Simon has an uncanny knack of seeing the threads of the story in the unlikeliest of places and he brings the story out so strongly that , it literally chokes you. I haven't watched the series, I cannot wait to watch it.

Except a bit of favoritism towards Edgerton and a bit of dislike of Kincaid, he was able to keep everything pretty objective. I will never forget Geraldine Parrish "The Insurance Black Widow" or the informant who wanted toThe loss of Baltimore Sun was the gain of all of us. David Simon has an uncanny knack of seeing the threads of the story in the unlikeliest of places and he brings the story out so strongly that , it literally chokes you. I haven't watched the series, I cannot wait to watch it.

Except a bit of favoritism towards Edgerton and a bit of dislike of Kincaid, he was able to keep everything pretty objective. I will never forget Geraldine Parrish "The Insurance Black Widow" or the informant who wanted to stay "Monogamous". This book is way stranger than fiction and makes more sense than reality...more

David Simon is a journalist and writer best known for his nonfiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and its television dramatization Homicide: Life on the Street, which David Simon also produced and wrote for.

“For a detective or street police, the only real satisfaction is the work itself; when a cop spends more and more time getting aggravated with the details, he's finished. The attitude of co-workers, the indifference of superiors, the poor quality of the equipment - all of it pales if you still love the job; all of it matters if you don't.”
—
9 likes

“Boiled down to its core, the truth is always a simple, solid thing”
—
6 likes